


Are You Gonna Be My Girl? (Or Three Birthdays to Remember)

by ninhursag



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Aliens Make Them Do It, Community: ladies1st, Femdom, Multi, Pegging, Sex Toys, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-24
Updated: 2010-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-06 16:22:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bizarre alien peace rituals, drunken debacles, Jim Kirk's pornography, the phrase 'bet your sweet ass' taken way too literally, bar fights, everyone's favorite Orion and super advanced sex toys of the future you wish you had now. A love story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Are You Gonna Be My Girl? (Or Three Birthdays to Remember)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/ladies1st/profile)[**ladies1st**](http://community.livejournal.com/ladies1st/) exchange for the awesome [](http://jain.livejournal.com/profile)[**jain**](http://jain.livejournal.com/). However, for various reasons, I ended up only using an excerpt of the story for the comm. This is the whole and complete version. And a big thanks to [](http://azephirin.livejournal.com/profile)[**azephirin**](http://azephirin.livejournal.com/) for pre-reading it for me.

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |  [star trek](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/star+trek)  
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Contains (in no particular order): Pegging, light d/s, aliens made them do it, references to porn, canon character death (unless you read the optional super happy ending)

 

**Uhura**

This is not the beginning. This is more like the end.

Uhura is absolutely convinced that these things only happen to them because of Jim and the aura of inevitable doom that surrounds him like a bad smell. There's no way that a simple, ceremonial treaty signing can go this wrong for any other captain, hell, this one is over the top even for a Jim Kirk special.

It's like really bad porn or the punchline of an even worse Academy joke about life out in the black, the kind of joke that includes alien priests with long white hair and a dirty mind. The priest they need on their side to get a goddamn treaty signed.

"Is Jim-Captain your mate?" the priest asks her and smiles lasciviously, licking his lips with an intensely pink forked tongue. "He is very fine to look upon." He's watching Jim, who is too busy talking to the local military leader, a tall, no nonsense looking female with intent dark eyes, to notice that the priest pretty much has his gaze glued to Jim's ass.

For all she knows, Jim might like it just fine if he does realize that he's being leered at, but it's not like she can go over and ask him right at the moment. Instead she shows the priest her teeth. "He is my mate," she says, with a firm certainty, like she's not talking on pure impulse and straight out of her ass. "We don't share."

Which, knowing her luck, Uhura figures means Jim is going to try to talk the military leader into bed or something and make the lie obvious right then and there. Naturally, it turns out to be much worse that that. This is Jim, of course it's worse than that.

She doesn't know how bad it's going to be until she gets to the actual signing, two minutes late and cursing out the guard who'd held her up at the entrance. When she gets there, though, the conference room isn't teaming with the military and diplomatic forces of a planet. It's so empty it almost echoes, just the priest standing there, looking stupidly smug.

And of course there's Jim stripped naked, with his hands tied behind his back and lashed to the wall behind him, staring blankly ahead while the priest gives Uhura a benign smile. Jim isn't looking at her at all and she sort of wants to hit someone.

"The treaty must end in the ritual to be enforceable," the priest says firmly. "Normally, I would do the honors, but since he is your mate, we will leave it to you."

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Uhura mutters, resisting the urge to bury her face in her hands.

At the sound of her voice, Jim's head snaps up from where he's hanging it pressed to his chest. When he sees her the reaction is immediate and physical. The tension and blankness melts away and his smile is visceral and bright with relief when he sees it's her instead of... well, she's not sure she wants to think about who he thought it was going to be.

"You and your mate will participate in the marriage rituals as provided by the book of the mountains," the priest says, in loud stenographic tones, like someone speaking for posterity. "First, you must copulate to seal your vows."

Fucking Jim. Wait, that's way too literal. She bites the inside of her cheek.

"Hi," Jim says, in his normal voice, except he sounds way too happy for someone who's naked and tied to a wall so that he can marry her. "Wanna copulate and get married to seal a peace treaty?"

Uhura groans. "Yes, fine," she says. Then, in a dialect of Kiswahili that she's sure there's no way the natives' machine translator is going to have, she curses under her breath. "Why is this my life?"

Jim winks and answers back in the same language. "Because I'm awesome and you love me? And you don't wanna watch me get fucked by a creepy priest... I hope."

"Yeah," she mutters. "Fine." Then she throws up her hands, strides forward and kisses him on the mouth. "But I'll have you know this is not the way I planned my wedding. I was going to elope, damn it. And send vids to all my relatives. How the hell am I supposed to send a vid of this?" Then she kisses him again.

Jim nods with way more enthusiasm than the comment is worth. She rubs a hand down the smooth line of his bare spine and he shivers, his chest heaving, bringing the muscle into relief. If he weren't tied up, he'd be easily strong enough that he could probably break her with his hands and they both know it.

If he weren't tied up, he'd probably beg her to do this to him anyway. She tongues his earlobes and he sighs. "Hey, doesn't this remind you of the virgin sacrifice scene in Alien Sex Goddesses 17?" he mumbles, still in Kiswahili. "Only with worse special effects and without any virgins?" She kicks him in the knee, but he doesn't shut up until she puts her hand over the shaft of his dick and tightens the grip.

"Better acting, though," he squeaks. She laughs into the hollow of his throat and rubs her thumb over the head of his cock.

Somewhere behind her the priest is saying something and probably leering, but she covers as much of Jim's body with hers as she can and pretends she can't hear a word until she really can't anymore.

\

Later, just before they're ready to beam back aboard the ship, Jim smiles and leans down, dropping a kiss on Uhura's forehead. "Happy birthday," he whispers and she sighs and tilts her chin up. He looks so earnest and bright, like a little boy who is pretty sure he did something good-- but not completely sure.

She can't resist smiling back. That brightens him even further. "All things considered," she concedes, "I've had worse presents. I could have done without stage directions from the local religious authority."

His teeth gleam in the bright sun. "Cool. I was gonna get you the same thing, anyway. You know, later, with less stage directions. Under less fraught circumstances."

"You were not." She smacks him lightly across the back of the head and he mock winces.

His laughter is sharp and shiny, like a newly minted edge. "I was not," he admits. "But, after this, I will." He takes both of her hands into his, engulfing them in a tight, steady grip. She nods. She's looking forward to it. He leans in to whisper, "Especially now that we're ritually married and you're my wife."

She can feel her eyes roll, looking to the heavens for mercy. "I'm pretty sure that given the nature of the ritual and the language the priest was using, you're the one who's my wife, Jimmy."

His snicker manages to sounds strangely magnanimous. "I don't think they really got the concept of binary gender roles on that planet," he admits. "So, maybe I am your wife."

She looks up at the stars and, just as the transporter lights hit them, she says what she knows he has to be thinking too. "Gaila would have gotten the biggest kick out of this." Jim's grip tightens on her hands.

Maybe it's a beginning after all.

 

**Gaila**

Actually, if you're looking for the beginning of Jim and Uhura, it all got started somewhere between the wreckage of the starship Kelvin and a gleaming white hospital in Kenya, but maybe that's going back too far.

There was also this bar in Iowa, right by the Riverside shipyards, where a pretty but assy farm boy met a second year cadet with a xenolinguistics specialty but that part's gone down into legend by now anyway. No need for a recap.

The truth is, like many things in this universe, it's Gaila's fault. All of it. And she's not even around to take responsibility for it.

The real point of origin is another bar, somewhere in the historic part of the Haight, celebrating the birthday of a crazy pheromone ridden green girl who was the best friend Nyota Uhura ever had with said best friend and this one boy named Jim who was always too good looking for anyone's sanity. And then there's a bet.

Gaila makes the bet, but Uhura is drunk enough on three Cardassian Sunrises and fuck knows how many beer chasers that it seems like a good idea to take it.

"The game is holographic darts," Gaila says and rubs her palms together gleefully. "Jim's program."

"Kirk?" Uhura mutters and rolls her eyes. "He probably set it up with a subroutine to cheat. It's not exactly a test of skill."

Gaila giggles. "Actually, it is exactly that-- programming skill. Whoever breaks his code wins the game and gets our lovely code monkey as the prize." She makes an extravagant gesture at the prize in question. One James Kirk, Cadet, currently annihilation drunk-- Uhura can tell from the graceless way his heels knock together and the glazed, unfocused look in his blue eyes. He's sitting on the edge of a battered pool table watching the interchange with all evidence of interest. Gaila leans over to stage whisper. "He's really good with his mouth. Come on, it will be fun!"

Uhura glares at him and he grins back at her, fluttering his lashes like he thinks he's a gift. "I wanna different prize," she declares. "This one is stupid."

That makes Jim snicker. "Suuu—re," he says and leans over just far enough the risk of falling on his face is really obvious. "You're just mad because I beat you out for treasurer of the xenolinguistics club."

"If by beat me, you mean you're treasurer and I'm president." She glares at Gaila. "See what I mean? His mouth opens and out comes stupid," Uhura says. Then she picks up what's left of her last beer and knocks it back, ignoring the offended sounding noises from Kirk's direction.

Gaila shrugs. "I'm telling you, you're passing up a good thing. Hey-- how about we play for his ass instead of his mouth? He likes it when you--"

"Gaila!" Jim interrupts sharply. "There are some things you don't need to share with the class." When Uhura turns to look at him again there's a definite bright red flush spreading over his fair skin. Huh. She thinks it might actually make him sort of interesting.

Uhura can't help it. She leans over and pats him on the suddenly pink cheek. His skin is ridiculously warm and soft under her hand and he glares at her in a way that's actually pretty. Glares, but moves into her touch anyway, following her hand for a moment when she lets it fall away. Huh. She's never really given it serious thought before, nothing more than idle what if's, but what the hell.

"Well, if we put it that way, it's a bet," she says and snickers at the way his jaw drops. "Assuming the stakes are still game to be played for?"

"Don't worry," Gaila says blithely, and Uhura can't tell if she's talking to her or to Jim. "I promise, whoever wins this, the stakes are definitely going to feel like a winner!"

For some reason that makes Jim laugh out loud until he's kicking back and sprawled on the table behind him. Uhura can almost feel the hairy eyeballs from other people in the room, either because they're just jealous or because they want to use the damned pool table. She grins and waves in the direction of one particularly big looking guy in undress blacks.

"Hey, you! Guy who's staring! I'd invite you to play," she calls, "But you can't! So fuck off!" If she were even slightly more sober, that probably wouldn't be funny. It definitely wouldn't be hilarious enough to crack up Gaila and Jim all over again until they're all holding their stomachs laughing, feeling the booze slosh around inside.

The guy waves his hands around like he's all big and bad but backs off after making the flaily motions. Jim snickers and Gaila smirks and then pushes herself up on her elbows. "Right," she says. "Jim, call up the subroutine. Your sweet ass is mine."

"I feel so used," Jim says, with a cheer so thick it's almost sickening. "Like a conduit for your bizarre dominance games. Is this some kind of estrogen thing? Wait, then what's Gaila's excu--" Uhura smacks him across the back of the head and he rolls his eyes and calls up the program, fingers graceful on the touchpad in front of him. An array of holographic darts flicker into existence.

Uhura picks one up-- it's nice, almost as heavy to the touch as the real thing. Good, solid work. She peers at Jim, but he's watching Gaila instead, all clumsy, drunken concentration.

"Okay," Gaila says. "Game is best of three. First person who figures out how the cheating subroutine works is an automatic winner."

"Deal," Uhura says. "I go first." She can feel Jim's steady, narrow gaze on the back of her neck as she tests out the dart, trying to figure out the trick to it. She doesn't turn around to acknowledge him, because what would be the fun in that?

Gaila wins the first two rounds on pure grace and skill, which makes Jim grin like a maniac and drape himself over her like a showgirl from an ancient film. "You," he says, a little too loudly, "Are so awesome, Gaila."

Uhura just laughs and salutes them both, before tipping back the last gulp of her Sunrise and letting it burn going down. "I concede, I guess," she says. "The stakes are all yours."

Gaila frowns and shakes her head, though that doesn't stop her from wrapping one arm around Jim's waist and groping his ass with a sort of casual thoughtfulness. "No, wait. You can still win. You just have to figure out how he cheats."

Jim raises an eyebrow and clutches his chest in mock offense. "I love how you're both so sure I programmed it so I could cheat," he says. "I feel so... so... _known_." His smile is beatific, showing bright white teeth and softness.

Uhura tells herself it's for the challenge and not that smile that she picks up the dart one more time. It feels normal, smooth under her hand, but for a cheat to be effective there has to be something she can do to manipulate it. She frowns, staring down. Sliding her fingers along the seams.

Wait. There. She squeezes a rough spot and feels it react against her. Once-- once. Twice-- three times. Fuck. She feels the grin stretch her face before she hears the sound of her own laughter. Lets the dart slide, the gesture careless, not even bothering to aim. It hits home in the bull's eye anyway, with hardly a flicker.

"Fibonacci sequence," she says and makes a quick, dismissive gesture with her hands. "You squeeze the right spot in a Fibonacci sequence and the dart hits bull's eyes."

Jim claps, with what she'd call mockery if it weren't for the bright pleasure in his smile and the way it crinkles the skin around his eyes, lighting him up. "When she's right, she's right," he says. "Wait, does this mean you both win? Gaila on points and Uhura for getting the trick, right?"

Uhura's pretty sure that those weren't the terms, but Gaila laughs, tossing her bright red hair in a way that's nearly hypnotic and winds one of her warm arms around Uhura's shoulders. This close Uhura can smell her, pheromones swirling like cinnamon streaks. She can swear she smells Jim too, when Gaila pulls him in with her other arm, the bitter dark taste of his beer and the clean sweetness of his sweat.

Uhura sighs and lets her head rest on Gaila's shoulder. "Guess so," she says. Gaila's hair feels soft and delicate against her cheek.

"Happy birthday, Gaila," Jim whispers. He sounds like he's still smiling, lit up from the inside. His hand brushes over Gaila's skin, causally bumping into Uhura's shoulder.

"You are both my best friends," Gaila says. "Ever. And this is going to be my best birthday!"

They go back to the narrow room she shares with Gaila, both their arms linked with Gaila's. She doesn't go out of her way to touch Jim as they go, but she doesn't avoid him either. There's a chilly San Fransisco fog settling around them, but she can't feel it through the haze of the drinks in her veins and the company stumbling along with her, warm and solid.

"Sing me a song," Gaila says as they walk, lower lip hanging in a pout like a kid begging for a treat and Uhura laughs, but she tilts back her head and sings the chorus from a drinking song that was her favorite when she was a teenager. Jim waits a few measures and then hums the harmony for her. He'll never sing professionally, but his voice is strong and clear and it's nice. Really nice.

Gaila smiles, which doesn't do anything to make her look any older, but it sends a thrill of warmth and pleasure through Uhura's veins that lasts until they're safely inside, out of the wind. Jim's still humming, but softer, almost subliminally. Gaila seems to hear it anyway because she takes his hand like he's offered her a dance. He laughs and goes with it, spinning her around the room.

Uhura's liked him before, but it's always been a grudging thing-- reluctant affection tempered with knowledge that he was a little too smug, too forward. Boys like that were dangerous. Now, watching him, light on his feet and easy, spinning Uhura's best friend in time to the music in his head like he'd been born knowing how to move and drawing out her answering grace... it's hard to grudge.

It's a few minutes before Gaila goes still, stopping him with her hands on his hips. "You," she says, "Should be naked for us. Let us see what kind of a prize we won."

Jim blinks and then nods. "I love a lady who knows what she wants," he says. He shows his teeth, bright and bare. "Did I ever tell you I danced professionally for a while?"

"Noooo," Gaila says, tipping forward like her body's suddenly remembered she's not really sober. "Why didn't you tell me before? Was it the dirty kind?"

Uhura just lifts her eyebrows when Jim looks her way. She's leaning against the wall, but doesn't quite remember how she got there. His smile and the motion of his hips feel heavy, like he's a lot closer than he looks. She nods at him. "Yeah," he drawls. "Totally the dirty kind. You get paid more for that."

"Show us," Uhura says, crossing her arms over her chest like she's impatient instead of shaky.

He takes a couple of slow, careful steps forward until they're almost toe to toe. Not quite touching. "Normally, I'd charge you something for this. Like... I dunno, your first name. But, a bet's a bet and it is Gaila's birthday." Then he grins, lighting his face suddenly, so it doesn't feel like a challenge anymore.

"It is! So be naked!" Gaila calls and that makes Jim laugh out loud, tipping his head up and making a smooth arc of his neck. He takes another step back and closes his eyes like he's listening for something, a song playing in his head.

When he moves again Uhura finds herself pressing her hand to her mouth, watching the slow glide of his hips and the way he angles them just so, so that his jeans ride down. Easy and slow and with a degree of control. Uhura watches him and breathes in, hard and fast, getting a hit of something else. Gaila's scent, warm and sweet, arousal heavy enough to make her cheeks throb and her knees quiver. She hugs herself harder.

Jim must smell Gaila too, all those crazy pheromones, stirring up his system. He moves a little faster, sloppier. Slithering the rest of the way out of those ridiculous jeans, baring the long muscled lines of his thighs and legs. He's visibly half hard through the thin fabric of his boxers, but he doesn't touch there yet. Just smiles to himself, and tugs off his loose t-shirt with one quick motion. His stomach is as solid as the rest of him, all clean lines and nothing to spare. There are scars there, old and faint, but they just make him solid and real.

Otherwise he'd be too pretty to even be annoying.

Uhura licks her lips and shivers. She's so busy watching him that she almost jumps out of her skin when Gaila slides up to her, inserting herself into the almost non-existent space between Uhura and the wall and wraps both arms around her from behind. She can feel the tickling softness of Gaila's hair on her earlobe, the whisper of her breath. Thick and heady, making her relax as quickly as she was startled.

"He's beautiful, isn't he? I've so been wanting to share him with you," Gaila murmurs. Uhura could swear she feels the slickness of Gaila's tongue against her neck. Just a swipe, but it makes her whimper and lean back. "This will be fun."

"Can't say no to fun," Uhura whispers, and her voice comes out rawer than she'd ever meant it to. Gaila laughs, low and easy, and her arms slide down until they're tight around Uhura's waist, holding her steady. That's lucky-- Gaila is alien warm and the press of her breasts against Uhura's back makes her knees quiver.

And then there's Jim. The lines and angles of him, bare and pretty. Just a few curves-- his ankles, smooth and paler than the rest of him for some reason. His ass, just a little, just enough to grab. He steps up to them, just holding out his hands. "So, I gave you my show," he says. "Let's see yours."

Gaila laughs out loud, a rumble in Uhura's ear. Then she's pulling on Uhura's shirt, somewhere between sensual and playful and Uhura couldn't have brought herself to complain even if she wanted to.

Uhura isn't privy to whatever meaningful looks Jim and Gaila exchange and has no idea how they both seem to just know what the other wants. Years of practice or just two people who understand each other a little too well.

They move in sync in any case, green skin brushing up against fair, until Uhura's naked and touch sensitive everywhere, nipples full and hard. She almost aches for their hands on her but they've already moved on to the next stage of the game, facing each other.

Jim has very nice hands, especially for a man. Smooth and clever, the only pair she's noticed that come close to Spock's, and her Vulcan advisor is just that, a Vulcan. Jim's anything but, all bright, winning smiles, and those long fingered hands curled and held out, like he's offering them to Gaila to be inspected. Gaila raises them up and brushes her lips over his fingers, but it only takes a second.

"Come on," she says, "Come on." Jim comes and Uhura's not even a half step behind.

Uhura doesn't know where the hell Gaila got the underbed restraints or how she's managed it so that Uhura never noticed, but she's not complaining, and neither is Jim. He just laughs and shakes his head, "Kinky," he murmurs. "Did you think I was going somewhere?"

Gaila makes a steady, serene face, like an alien priestess in a pornographic holo-vid that's about to make the hero do something unlikely. "You are our prize, it would only be right. It is a... cultural matter among the gods of the Orions, you see." Uhura tries very hard not to be the one to laugh at that, mostly because Gaila's eyebrows are twitching and it's ten kinds of obvious she's fucking with them.

Jim doesn't even bother to try. He scratches the back of his neck and snickers ferociously. "Well, if it's _cultural_, what I can say? Except, by the way, I saw that movie you're quoting-- Alien Sex Goddesses 8, right? Very hot, until the ritual knives come out-- which, I've been a really good sport, but if there are knives, I'm safewording out," he says, even as he offers up his wrists to let Gaila tie his hands together and pull them up, settling him onto the bed.

It's incredibly ridiculous and sort of stupidly hot all at once and Uhura sidles over to get a better view of the show, watching the dark restraints stretch over the tanned skin of Jim's wrists.

Gaila giggles and shakes her head, the serene expression shattered. She tests out Jim's bonds with careful, practiced hands. "Aw, come on, I always wanted to say that! I'd be an awesome alien sex goddess. But, no, no knives, I have something much better than that-- how are the knots? Not too tight?"

"Too loose," he says and pulls at them, wrist muscles flexing. "If I wanted to, I could just break these."

Gaila smirks and pats him on the cheek. "We'd better make sure you don't want to then. I promise you and your very nice ass will enjoy it. Now the toys!"

That just makes Jim laugh harder, face bright and open without his hands to cover it, while Gaila pulls out and then snaps open the lid of a jewel toned box she's been keeping in her nightstand. Uhura curls up so she can peek over her shoulder. The device inside is pale and small and unremarkable looking, but Uhura has faith. Especially when Jim draws in a slow, but audible hissing breath at the sight, one that makes Gaila smile.

"This little beauty is something we can thank the good people of Risa for," Gaila murmurs, slipping it out of the box, almost reverently. "It's probably the best dildo in the history of... well, ever." She tilts up her chin and grins alarmingly at Uhura. "Guess what makes it so awesome? Just guess, no hints from the peanut gallery." She smacks Jim lightly on the shoulder, like he was about to give one.

Uhura frowns and stares at it. It really looks like a smooth, plastic cylinder, nothing special. She raises an eyebrow and reaches out to touch it with her forefinger. Almost jumps back and shrieks when it moves under her hand.

Moves and shifts, the palid color melting into a soft, even brown that matches her skin and the shape... um. Gaila laughs out loud and Jim lets out another breath. "That is a _very_ nice size," Gaila says and almost bounces. "I've always thought humans were big as a rule, but you're still in a class of your own, roommate of mine."

"What the hell?" Uhura doesn't quite shout.

Jim shifts up as far as he can with his wrists bound over his head. "It's yours, man," he says. "Or it would have been, if you'd been a guy. When you touch it, the nanotech does a quick DNA scan and apparently guy Uhura would have been as genetically gifted as you are in his own special way." He makes himself giggle at that, which should really be annoying, but for some reason makes Uhura want to kiss him instead. She manages to resist the urge.

Gaila nods and claps her hands. "But, it's even better than just that. Try it on. Come on, try it on!"

Uhura snorts and wrinkles her nose, but she has two pairs of expectant blue eyes fixed on her, and what the hell, she's come this far. She grabs the device in one hand and hikes up her skirt with the other. Pushes her panties down. Someone makes a tiny, happy sound, probably Jim, but she ignores him in a way she's become practiced at.

"Is there any special way to--" she begins, but doesn't have time to finish the sentence. It... the thing... attaches itself when she touches it down to skin, right where an actual cock would have been if she'd... wow.

She blinks, staring down, almost enraptured. Then she touches it and her eyes almost roll back in her head. It's like the thing's made a connection directly to her clit, all bright, sharp pleasure, rolling through her skin. She touches it again, a long smooth glide of her hands, and just moans. "Gotta love those Risans because fuck knows they do nice things for the rest of us," Jim murmurs and Gaila makes a reverent sound of agreement.

"This is... holy... wow," Uhura says softly, still trying to breathe right. She's always had the vague idea it would be interesting to have her own dick, just for a test drive, just to see what it would be like. Apparently it would be like... fuck, if this is what it felt like just to wrap her hand around the thing, then what would it be like with Jim...

She stares at him and he looks back up from under his lashes, with a demureness so obviously fake it would be hilarious if it weren't so weirdly attractive. "Gonna put it to me, Uhura?" he croons, not quite smiling. "Because if you wait too long, I might get boooored. You wouldn't like me when I'm bored."

"It's true," Gaila puts in a mournful tone, winking at Uhura all the while. "Things get broken when Jimmy is bored. I think the damage he can do all tied up is a little limited, though."

Uhura tilts back her head and laughs, full throated and as purely happy as she remembers being in a long, long time. Both Jim and Gaila turn identical, white toothed smiles up at her and she just wants to kiss them both, so she does.

She could pretend and say it was an afterthought, the rest of it. The way the toy felt when she put her hands on it, slicking it up with lube. The way Jim's body felt, tight and lithe, alive under her hands and then the pressure and warmth when she pushed inside it. Gaila, sliding up behind her back and cupping her breasts from behind, soft curls sliding over Uhura's skin.

Calling it an afterthought would have been a damned lie though. _Gotta love the Risans for this,_ was the only thing she could think before she had nothing left but heat and the scent of Gaila's hand over her mouth, fingers sliding in. The blue of Jim's eyes, sweet and wide and fathomless, and how easily he gave himself up and over to her.

"He loves it," Gaila whispers. "Pretty little human... what do you call it... we say, it would translate to hungry-greedy. He's always so greedy. He loves it."

Jim's heels press into her thighs and he moans. His face is just like Gaila says- greedy, hungry, wanting. He feels so damned good.

She comes way too soon, but the next part is almost as good, when she's there, just watching. Jim's still hard, cock pressed against his belly, leaving wet spots where it presses into skin. Gaila cleans the toy off quickly and it shifts in her hands into something green and long and thin. Then she's between his legs. His thighs are shaking when he wraps them around her back and Uhura has to crane her neck to see.

His hips stutter and Gaila laughs, pressing down on his shoulders with her palms. His mouth hangs open and Uhura can't resist kissing him.

She pretends in the morning that resisting is easy, because her mouth feels disgusting and filmy and her head is pounding worse than any hangover cure could put a dent in. They're too warm, Jim and Gaila, and the sun is too bright. Uhura has to cover her eyes when her alarm goes off.

Just a gentle, but relentless vibration that turns teeth rattling when she ignores it too long. It gets her awake in time for her early class, anyway, and that's something.

Gaila moans softly when she pulls out of bed and Jim makes a gruff, unhappy noise, but neither of them wake up enough to say anything. Uhura sighs and comes that close to hesitation-- just hovering at the edge of the bed, staring at the tangle of bare limbs, green and pink, soft skin and smooth muscle. The impulse to smooth back Jim's hair or stroke Gaila's shoulder is almost irresistible.

Intro to Xenobio waits for no woman, though. Fucking required survey courses.

Uhura tells herself she's going to talk to them about it later, at least enough to listen to what they think is going on, but of course she doesn't. The longer she puts it off, the easier it is to smile and shrug when Gaila gives her funny looks and pretend she has no idea that the quality of Jim's stares have changed.

It's not like it was ever going anywhere... right?

About a week later, when she's almost convinced herself everything is great, no-strings fun, Commander Spock stops her while she's preparing lecture notes for the special section of Vulcan dialects she's TA-ing for. He doesn't quite smile, but he gives the impression he has.

"If you would be interested," he says. "There is an establishment newly opened on the Pier that I think you would enjoy."

She smiles at him while her brain shifts into overdrive. She's been thinking about him for... weeks,. Months if she's honest with herself. He's a Vulcan, though, he's not going to...

But he is. There's an expectant tilt to his eyebrows and he's leaning toward her, just a little. He looks almost young like that, weirdly vulnerable with his hands clasped behind his back. "I would be interested," she finds herself saying. "Thank you for asking me."

She isn't sorry either, no matter what Gaila says or Jim-- she isn't. Not until a world ends and she sees the look on Jim's face on a transporter pad, like she's hit him with something and he can't even flinch.   
Really, not until they find a graveyard of ships and one of them is the Farragut, temporary home of one Ensign Gaila, engineering.

She's not sorry, even when Spock finds her afterward, when her knees ache from kneeling in a little grassy spot on the hill where they've put up headstones for the lost crew of the Farragut. Gaila's body isn't there-- most bodies aren't actually there. You don't get much back after a ship is exposed to hard vacuum.

Spock knows what she needs to say even before she does. She can only hope he feels the same, until he touches her and she's sure of it.

Spock's hand on hers is light, careful. Intimate. "You are and always shall be my friend," he whispers to her. His mouth brushes over her temple and she tilts her head up and smiles at him even though her eyes are raw from crying.

"Same," she says. And maybe she's still crying but it's relief, pure and simple, it's okay. She goes back to an empty dorm room, pulls the bedcovers over her head, and goes straight to sleep.

About six hours and change later, Jim wakes her with a comm, dragging her out of a fragmented night's sleep. "They're giving me Enterprise," he says. "I want you. On the bridge, I mean," he stops. On the blurry screen he's shaking his head in a stammery, confused kind of way, like he's trying to make words fit together right and not managing. "I mean, I want you as head of communications. Say yes."

She rubs her eyes and nods once. His shoulders sag in visible relief. "Thank you. Bones is in too. And that Sulu kid-- with the sword and his buddy the fresh scrubbed math genius. You know that... of course that Gaila was supposed to be my chief engineer," he mutters and looks away. "I-- she-- but--"

"I know, Jim," Uhura interrupts, because it's getting hard to listen to and she's tired, dragged awake. Her head aches. "She'd have been honored."

His eyes narrow and sharpen. "No one else is good enough," he says and shakes his head. "But-- doesn't matter. I-- thank you. Kirk out."

The screen flickers. She touches the darkening surface with her fingertips and closes her eyes. She doesn't go back to sleep.

 

** Jim**

It's not that she falls head over feet into Jim Kirk's bed after that-- it was never like that. Sometimes, he's the cross between the bitchy older brother she never wanted and a teenage diary conception of booty call. Mostly, he's _her_ captain. Emphasis on the possessive, even if Uhura knows that she's far from the only one of the crew to feel that way.

On his birthday, Jim manages to redefine drunk, but hell, it's a holiday and they're on leave even if he is the captain. She's mostly pissed at him because he's far gone enough that she's got to stay sober and keep him from accidentally killing himself. As far as she's concerned, that's supposed to be McCoy's job, but McCoy palmed it off on her with an evil glare and a hissed, "You're screwing his ass, take some responsibility for it, Uhura."

"Who gave anyone the impression I was the responsible one?" she mutters, with all the pathos of someone who really wants to be drunk themselves and isn't allowed, but McCoy is almost impervious to fucking Jim and his big blue eyes, so she can barely get a look in.

She's glad for the sobriety and the steady ground under her feet about half an hour later when someone screams out a string of Deltan obscenities and Jim goes crashing through the cheap synthesized wood of the bar.

She dives after him without even thinking about it. The only saving grace is that the Deltan manages to hit a narrow eyed Orion man in his quest to break Jim's neck, and the two of them get distracted duking it out. Uhura takes the opportunity to seize Jim by the wrist, hiss, "That's enough, what the hell?" into his ear, and try to haul him up.

He's not quite dead weight, but he doesn't really cooperate either. "I don't need any help," he hisses right back, like she's the one in the wrong.

She glares at him. "Well, unless you're planning to hit me too, you're getting it. I am not bailing the Captain of a starship out of the local drunk and disorderly lock up, that would just win the stupid prize."

His eyebrows quirk. "We can't have that," he says, but he stops arguing and lets her drag him out by the wrists anyway. She ducks and half hauls them both through the bar-fight chaos and out the door, cursing under her breath the whole way. Fucking McCoy was the one who was supposed to be the expert at this shit, not her.

They get half way across town before he comes out of his half stupor and drags her through the gate of someone's garden. "If there's a fucking alarm system," she starts, but he shuts her up, with this filthy little kissing move he probably learned from one of his ridiculous movies.

He's always been a good kisser, sweet and not too much tongue, and maybe those movies aren't so bad. There's blood on his mouth, but she's used to that kind of thing by now. When he breaks away, he says, "Don't worry about alarms. There's no one home and the system's not armed."

She sighs. He sounds so sure of himself, he's probably right. "How do you know that?" she demands anyway.

"I saw the system model number pasted on the archway coming in. This one used to be in use all the time back in Iowa." He doesn't add that he had lots of practice with it, that part's implicit. She sighs.

"Right. Want to explain the barfight, Jim? You can't pull this shit like you're an Academy brat anymore, Captain my Captain."

"You just like saying _my_ Captain," he says and winks sloppily at her. "Believe me, lots of people want me but in the end I am all yours." She rolls her eyes and he rolls his right back. "Fuck it, Uhur-- _Nyota_. No one asked you to take care of me."

"Other than your friend the mad Doctor?" she spits. "If I let you get your head busted in he'll space me during my next physical and claim it was an accident."

"He will not," Jim protests, sounding a little too offended.

Uhura's eyes narrow. "He will so. You suck." They glare at each other for a minute, but Jim's drunk enough that he breaks first, the laughter coming out in thick, bright waves.

"Okay, he will so," he admits. Then he leans forward, cups his hands around the back of her neck, his fingers tangling in the strands of her pony tail, and kisses her again.

She shrugs out of her jacket and spreads it on the grass, mostly because his looks nasty. There's not really enough room for them both to sit on hers, his ass is too wide or hers is too narrow, but she doesn't much care. They go down. He feels warm and alive under her hands.

Then he starts talking again.

"Does it feel kind of weird to you that we're having birthday sex and I'm not even tied up? Isn't that a little like that one cheesy Alien Sex Goddess knock off-- the one without the blue girl or even the great rod of devirginizing?" Jim says, with such honest bewilderment that Uhura covers her face with her palms. Someday, the skin on her palms will be wrinkled from all the face clenching she does and that will be all Jim's fault. Along with the fact she's actually seen the movie he's referring to. More than once. And may possibly have some of the dialog memorized.

Motherfucker.

"It's _your_ birthday," she says. "I think we can let the tying up part go, unless that's what you really want to do."

Jim makes an ambling gesture with his shoulders that's probably the sloppy drunk version of a shrug. "It's okay," he mumbles. "I like it when you don't want me to go anywhere."

"You're actually trying to break my heart," she says, punctuating the words like a statement even when Jim blinks at her in total, puppyish confusion. "I never want you to go anywhere, Jim," she finally says, when the look doesn't immediately go away. "Except when you get drunk on Scotty's moonshine and start quoting lines from your favorite porn of the moment at anyone who gets too close."

Jim blinks at her again. The smile, when it hits is slow and unbearably sweet. "You love me," he says. "You think my porn is _awesome_. You even like rescuing me from bar fights."

Uhura submits that it is not her fault that she slaps him for that and even if it was, there's no way that tiny little smack could have made him throw up. Not if he weren't completely blasted, beyond any natural law.

Jim submits that she totally deserves it when he aims for her favorite boots, but then he's an asshole, anyone will tell you that.

They fall asleep in the grass, her jacket under their heads, when they get tired of arguing about it. Her boots are a good distance downwind.

She wakes up with dew on her skin and Jim's hand stroking her hair in slow, soft motions. Her head is across his knee and she yawns and shifts so that she's looking up at him. Behind him the sun is rising, fading out the stars. His eyes are on that.

"Happy unbirthday," she whispers, because if it's getting on into daylight, then it's tomorrow and his birthday's over for another year. That makes his mouth quirk, even though he doesn't turn away from the stars.

"Lucky me," he says.

She sighs and pushes up on her elbow until she's almost sitting upright. "You are lucky, you know. You've got the stars and a ship to sail them by," she says. That draws a snort out of him and then he's quiet for a long moment.

"My Grandpa Tiberius used to say we're all made of stardust and to stardust we'll return," Jim mumbles when he finally speaks. He tips his head back to look at her and smiles without humor or comfort in it. "Isn't that the sappiest line you've ever heard?"

She sighs and kisses him on the cheek that's closest, her lips dry and gentle, like he's a kid-- he still smells way too much like morning and sick to even think about a kiss on the mouth. Still, he makes a soft, almost happy sound. "From you?" she says. "No, not really."

Maybe his smile is a shade closer to real. "You're probably right. Thanks for putting up with me."

"Someone has to."

Four months later it's spring back in San Fransisco, but they're off being mediators at the opposite end of the quadrant. Uhura celebrates her own birthday by accidentally marrying Jim Kirk in a conference center to seal a treaty. She can't complain.

Not much, anyway.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * ["those Risans [...] do nice things for the rest of us"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/388598) by [pandora_gold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandora_gold/pseuds/pandora_gold)




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